‘Patents vital to start-ups’

Ideas are valuable assets for entrepreneurs and start-ups. It is critical they get patents to protect them if they want to make money. A United States-based Nigerian start-up, Oshi Agabi, advises young entrepreneurs to seek protection for their intellectual property at a forum organised at Co Creation Hub(CChub), Lagos.

Silicon Valley-based Nigerian Oshi Agabi, who has created a device that can be used to detect the smell of explosives and cancer cells, has advised young entrepreneurs to protect their ideas with a patent if they want to make money.

He said this applies to any invention, whether it’s a piece of software, code or a totally new invention.

He advised startups investing in products which have national impact to start planning some sort of protection for investments.

According to him, the United States (U.S.) patent law is very generous for inventors who file a patent application for their innovations. Generally, the inventors have one year from the date of a public disclosure to file a patent application. But, in most other countries, one loses patent rights as soon as there’s a public disclosure of the invention.

He explained that it was important to start thinking about patents even before one starts talking to any potential customers and attempting to monetise the idea.

According to him, if one has a product that has some use outside Nigeria, one needs to get into the U.S. early with competent counsel because one slip-up in patent filing could cause a startup to lose out completely to competitors.

With supply and distribution chains becoming more international, he said startups needed to be aware to take advantage of the U.S. legal system to file a patent and get protection in all relevant international markets.

The Nigerian-born founder created a device that he says can be used to detect the smell of explosives and even cancer cells.

He explained that the device, called Koniku Kore, is the first to fuse live neurons from mice stem cells into a silicon chip. Koniku, which means‘immortal’ in the Yoruba language, started in 2015 and has raked in $8 million in revenue.

”We believe quite strongly that it’s going to be run with biological brains that are made with synthetic biological neurons. That is the declared intention of our company: to build a brain,” he said.

A “scrawny, nerdy kid,” Agabi grew up in Surulere in Lagos and obtained a Bachelors degree in Physics from the University of Lagos. He went on to do further studies in Physics and neuroscience in Sweden and Switzerland.